Westermarck Effect
by nosleep3
Summary: When Renesmee makes a discovery and a decision, Jacob is forced to come to terms with the flaws of the imprint. Is there anything stronger than a supernatural bond? A story of emotional growth, centered around Jacob.
1. Cognitive Dissonance

**Disclaimer: Twilight and its characters are the property of Stephenie Meyer. Any resemblance to real living people is unintentional, and references to real places are used fictitiously.**

**A/N: Originally I wrote this as part of the Twilight 25 Drabble challenge. However, the story grew until I realized it was too big to be a one-shot. I present it to you now in three chapters, which I hope to have all published within three days. Enjoy!**

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Westermarck Effect

Chapter 1 Cognitive Dissonance

"DAMN-fear!" Renesmee cried happily, racing around the room and tugging her various cold-skinned family members to her computer. "Look, it says so right there, Dad! I'm a—"

"Dhampyr," Edward read, eyes flying across the screen. _Dhampir, also dhampyre, dhamphir, or dhampyr, in Balkan folklore of the Roma people, is the child of a vampire father and a human mother._

Leave it to the gypsies to know more than actual vampires about something like this.

"Momma, Auntie Alice, Aunt Rose," Renesmee continued, dancing around them in ecstasy, "don't you see how amazing this is?" She stopped to clutch Esme, who to all the rest of the world looked to be only a few years older than the girl who privately called her _Grandmom._ "I have my own _word!_ I'm not a hybrid, or a cross, or—"

_A mutant. A freak._

Edward's eyes darkened as he heard the words his daughter skipped over as she pirouetted around the assembled family. She wasn't usually prone to this much spontaneous, unbridled enthusiasm anymore, but after eight years of remembering Caius's spittle-flecked judgment—_you breed mutants here—_it was a thrill to finally see the proof that both the Volturi and the Romanian coven were simply grossly uninformed of what went on between vampires and humans even on their own continent.

The Cullens crowded around the monitor until Edward finally pressed a combination of keys to send the image to the new liquid silica flatscreen mounted on the wall. "Look, Nessie," Emmett said, catching hold of his niece for a moment and pulling her in for a hug, "it says you have the ability to track vampires."

"You're not exactly hard to find, Uncle Emmett," the young lady laughed. All was right in her world, and she bestowed tiny kisses to every single member of her family, including an equally light familial peck for the silent Jacob. He stood a little ways apart from the vampires, confused as to why this was so important to her, why she was even looking it up after all these years.

_She has me,_ Jacob thought, much to Edward's consternation. _Why does she need to be called anything? It will only make her stand out even more compared to the rest of the pack._ Self-directed comments like that, even internal ones, never ceased to aggravate the young father.

Then Edward listened more closely to his daughter's inner monologue: _I can't wait to find Nahuel and tell him!_ Renesmee had only seen Nahuel a handful of times since they first met. Though she had not admitted as much to anyone, not even to herself, she was wondering if he would recognize her now that she was fully grown, anticipating his reaction in a way she didn't quite comprehend.

Turning his face back to the flatscreen so that no one would notice, Edward smiled.

* * *

"Nessie, I don't understand." Jake blinked several times, some part of him praying that after the right combination of blinks, the world would dissolve, or he would look down and realize he'd forgotten his pants and didn't study for the algebra test, and none of this would be real.

"What's not to understand?" she asked in return. "I don't want what you want for us. It's not like that for me."

"Don't you love me?" Jacob wanted to know. It was a slap in the face that he even needed to ask this question of this girl, in whose love he'd felt secure for eight long years.

"Of _course_ I do," Renesmee replied, infusing her voice with as much compassion as she could muster. "You've helped take care of me my whole life—"

"Then why—?" Jacob interrupted. Her logic made no sense to him. He loved Nessie. Nessie loved him. They were uniquely formed for each other, meant to be together, maybe even for centuries.

"You _raised_ me, Jacob!" Renesmee reminded him emphatically. "It would be like Emmett or Jasper…"

"How can you say that?" Jacob demanded. How could it be that now, after all these years, she would suddenly not understand?

"How can you _not?_" the young woman argued, doing her best to rein in her reaction for the benefit of someone she loved so well. But his insistence was part of the problem, and control was difficult to maintain. "I grew up with you as part of my family. Try to imagine if it were you and Rachel or Rebecca," she explained, hoping the idea would sink in. For just a moment, she considered placing her hand on Jacob's face and showing him images of himself kissing Rebecca romantically, but thought better of it. "The idea is just… sick."

"Sick?" Jacob repeated, ignoring the reference to his sisters. He knew that outsiders would never understand the dynamic of the imprint. Even he had found it strange at first, and his formerly human best friend had expressed mild repulsion when she'd learned of Quil imprinting on then-two-year-old Claire. But Nessie was different. She was his. She was supposed to get it. "The way I feel about you sickens you?"

"Yes, it does!" Renesmee tried not to shout, but at this point, she was losing patience with him. It wasn't so much how he felt that sickened her, but rather how he _wanted_ to feel about her, this man she looked up to as a brother. After all, was that not what he'd been during her formative years? Brother, babysitter, competitive hunting companion? As recently as this week, he had ribbed her and teased her as he did his human sisters, a fact that seemed lost on him.

Her mother had warned her that Jake could be thick, mule-headed, and prone to rash decisions, impulsive comments, even blatant manipulations that came back to bite him in the rear. He'd managed to mature somewhat over the years, but in times of personal stress, he occasionally reverted to much younger behavior. "Do you realize what I gave up for you?" he reminded her, indirectly proving her mother's point.

Years ago, when Renesmee was only an infant, Bella attempted to defend Jacob from Edward's wrath by making the point that Jacob had given up everything to protect them. This, of course, was before Bella learned of the imprint, temporarily lost her newborn mind, and went for Jake's throat. Still, the truth was made clear: Jacob had indeed given up all that he knew and loved in defense of the Cullen family. But Renesmee was nothing if not well-informed now, and she would not let Jacob twist the facts to suit his argument.

"Don't even try it," she groaned. "You gave up a life with the pack before I was born." She remembered hearing Jacob tell her father to throw her tiny body out the window when she was all of a minute old, though she had never brought this up to anyone. If her father ever heard her thinking of it, he said nothing, granting her verbal privacy, at least.

"To protect _you!_" Jacob insisted, the words out of his mouth before he even thought about them. At this, his Nessie snapped, unable to bear any more bald-faced lies.

"To protect _Mom!_" Renesmee knew the whole story, some of it told to her by her aunt Rosalie, other bits by Bella herself (who felt she owed her daughter some honesty), and still other parts gleaned from her own infant memories. "You were in love with my _mother._ I know you kissed her." That knowledge alone sent shivers up her spine. But more to the point, even with Renesmee's understanding of the reason behind the change of heart, it bothered her to an indeterminate degree that Jacob so easily switched his affection from mother to daughter. That he'd kissed Bella in June and declared himself devoted, practically betrothed, to Bella's child in September was nothing short of shocking, even to one who aged as rapidly as Renesmee. "How many different ways does this need to feel wrong before you finally get it, Jake?"

"Nessie," Jacob tried desperately, "I love you."

"I know," she answered plainly. "I love you, too, Jake. Just not like that. It's strictly platonic for me, nothing more. I just…I can't even think of it." Indeed, she was repulsed as she stood there, the tugging sensation in the pit of her stomach only contained by sheer willpower and the knowledge that she hadn't eaten any human food in four months. "You can't tell me you really think of me in that way. In theory, maybe, but physically?"

But Jacob held firm to his belief, some part of him thinking of the years when Nessie had been a child in need of firm guidance so she wouldn't grow up spoiled. "This is what I am, Ness." If he didn't give in, he thought, she would eventually see that she wasn't going to get her way. His currently canine-oriented brain seemed incapable of comprehending that this attitude was actually one more thing that pushed her away. "This is how it's supposed to be."

That was when Renesmee reached her limit.

"You expect me to marry you," she growled, "to…_sleep_ with you…because you developed love at first sight with me when I was an infant? I don't even get a say in the matter?"

"No," Jacob backtracked, "I didn't mean—!"

"Yes, you did," Renesmee interrupted. "You think things are _supposed_ to be a certain way because of some ridiculous supernatural biology, and I'm just _supposed_ to go along with it regardless of how I feel about it." In their years lived as a family, he'd never _asked_ how she felt about any of this. He'd only gone on being what she needed at the time, secure in his faith that eventually she would need a husband, and he would then return those feelings and have what _he_ needed. But despite the reluctant approval that surrounded him, it really was too much for anyone to accept but him. "Well, you know what, Jake? No."

The word echoed between them, reflected sound across a chasm that separated his understanding from hers.

"No?" Was she even allowed to say that to him? "Just…just _no?_"

"That's right," Renesmee reiterated. "No. I am not your one true love or your predestined mate."

Jacob scrambled, suddenly realizing that this was not an argument he could win simply by standing there repeating himself. "Look, if this is about Bella, that wasn't…I mean, we didn't…"

Renesmee raised a small hand to silence the boy in front of her before he felt the need to give carnal details of exactly what had or had not occurred. "This isn't really about my mother. Even if you'd never felt anything romantic for my mom, I'd like to give you enough credit to think you still would have come to her defense when she needed you, because it was the right thing to do. That said, I do not owe you a marriage as payment for saving her life or mine. I have a choice, and I choose to go my own way."

"B-But you can't just…leave me," Jacob stammered. Suddenly the earth's gravity was stronger, but instead of pulling him toward Nessie, it was tugging him downward, forcing him into a chair.

"You can't force me to have feelings that won't come naturally to me," Renesmee reminded him.

"But…" Jacob began grasping at straws, at anything that could make this turn around, or even make any kind of sense. "I'm yours. You always said I was yours, even when you were…small…" he petered off.

"Exactly," the bronze-haired woman hissed. "I was a _child,_ Jacob. I didn't understand anything, but you were old enough to know better."

"The imprint…" he whispered, voice hollow.

"To hell with the imprint," his love retorted, crossing her arms and looking away, as if Jacob's lowered form were something she couldn't bear to look at. And it wasn't, though not for malevolent reasons. It hurt her to see Jacob's world turned upside down, but it had to happen, and it was best not to pull her punches if she expected him to ever get any of this through his thick skull. "The imprint is a load of crap.

"That's not true!" Jake immediately defended his heritage, a natural reaction for him, though here it was misplaced. "It's part of what has kept us strong as a tribe for generations!"

"What 'us,' Jacob? Are you talking the tribe you left behind that I don't belong to?" Renesmee reminded him. Realizing that they were just going around in circles, she decided it would be best to end the argument. After all, whether he agreed with her now or was forced to accept the hand life had dealt him later, nothing was going to change. "I'm done having this conversation with you. I'm leaving, and I swear if you try to stop me, there will be hell to pay." Her teeth gleamed when she said it, reminding him that she was not just a girl, but a predator in her own right. Having to be the one doling out the tough love was a terrible role reversal for her, but she needed to do it now, while she was strong enough. "Goodbye, Jacob," she bade him. Renesmee darted to the front door, picking up her bag and leaving her house key on the small side table. She planned to be gone at least a year, and she knew, having already spoken to Alice, that this house would be vacated by the time she came back from wherever her travels took her. The first stop would be Brazil; her friend Zafrina could help her locate Nahuel and Huilen.

"I'll tell your parents!" Jacob protested in a last-ditch effort to make his Nessie listen to him and do what she was supposed to do.

"Right," Renesmee called over her shoulder as she opened the door, fingering the small, braided bracelet Jacob had given her for her very first Christmas, something akin to a promise ring. It didn't fit her wrist anymore, so she wore it on a leather string around her neck. "Things aren't going your way, so you run to Mom and Dad. Yet another way you've elected to prove you're neither immature nor my surrogate brother." She pulled the necklace over her head and set it on the table as well, quietly closing the door behind her as she left, his Nessie no more.

* * *

"Bella, Edward…look, I know you weren't down with this when I first imprinted on Nessie, but I thought you started to accept it after a while, and I really need someone on my side, here."

Bella and Edward looked down at Jacob, Bella with a sad, maternal air she'd acquired over the years, Edward with his arms folded and a stiff upper lip that he was having more trouble than usual maintaining.

"Look, Jake," Bella began consolingly, "I know it upsets you that Renesmee is going away, but I think it's best for everyone that we all start leaving this place. You're welcome to join us, but we're not staying close to Washington this time. You know the way you've ordered your life isn't sustainable. Not for you and certainly not for us."

"This isn't about _you,_" Jacob argued. Bella had been the one to come around to the idea of the future Jacob expected much sooner than everyone else, and the fact that she didn't immediately see this breach his way felt like betrayal. "If you don't like it here, I'm not stopping you from moving on. I'm talking about Nessie and what's best for her."

"Oh, come off it, Jacob!" Edward snorted. "We stayed in Forks much longer than we wanted to or should have because of your obligation to your pack and their commitment to their families. When we finally did start over, we could only come across the ferry to Vancouver Island and look for some tiny town, just _hoping_ that no one here recognized Carlisle or the rest of us. All for _you,_ so that _you_ could maintain your responsibilities, so that your pack wouldn't have to leave their lives behind and you could see them as often as needed if there was a hint of trouble. We should have gone to the east coast, or even left the continent, especially knowing the Volturi might pursue a vendetta against us. But we placed ourselves and our daughter at risk. For. _You._ It would be wise to have a look in the mirror before you accuse anyone else of selfish motivations."

Jacob looked at his feet, sufficiently reprimanded for the moment but still primarily concerned with the center of his world.

"I understand you're angry and hurt," Bella tried again, attempting to smooth things over the best she could, "but you have to understand that Renesmee is an adult now. She's capable of making up her own mind. We, as her parents, are going to support her."

Jake looked up from his seat in surprise. "But Bella, you know what this is. We've talked about it. Even when you were a human, it was clear to you what this meant. I can't live without her."

"I'm sorry, Jacob," Bella soothed, stroking his hair the same way she did Renesmee when she had nightmares as a child, "but I'm afraid you're going to have to make the effort."

"No!" he barked, jerking his head away. Bella lowered her hand and considered his slumped posture—he looked very much like the lovesick teenager he once was instead of the grown man he was supposed to be. "I don't _want_ a life without her in it."

"You've never even tried," Bella said, and the advice was old, familiar, and damning to Jacob's ears. They were his own words to her, from the time he'd hoped to woo Bella, thrown back in his face. "From the moment of imprint, you have spent every day with her. It's your habit, your addiction. You think you need it. But you've forgotten all about anyone having a choice. She has the power to choose, and so do you."

"Then I choose her!" The combination of demand and plea twisted the young Quileute's voice in strange ways that made Bella sympathetic and sad.

"You haven't looked at other options," she reminded him. "I remember…" Her voice dropped with shame, and Edward didn't need clairvoyance to know what flashed across her mind. "I remember a time when I was forced to weigh my options. And I chose Edward. It was the right choice for me, and I've never regretted it."

"Yeah," Jacob muttered, skin darkening with mortification. "I remember too."

"Yes," Bella continued, shuffling away her own embarrassment, "but you don't seem to think you have to do the same. You think the imprint is the end of the line for you, when it's not."

"Of course it is," Jake protested automatically, so ingrained was his personal understanding of the phenomenon.

Edward frowned. "You aren't even considering what my wife is trying to tell you," he interjected. "Stop thinking like a mindless dog and use your human brain. Ponder this like a rational adult, not an adolescent bag of hormones."

"Very funny," Jacob quipped, eyeing the young face of his would-be teenage centenarian father-in-law. "I don't expect you to understand biology in action, blood-drinker. To you, it's just something from a book. For me, it's my nature, my culture, my whole way of life."

"Then you have a problem, Jacob," Edward finally spoke, ochre eyes stern, "and it's far worse than you think."

"What are you talking about?"

Edward shared a glance with Bella, and the accompanying extra breath she took signaled that she was lifting her mental shield to share some thought with him. Jacob groaned internally, hating the way Cullens communicated with each other specifically to leave him out of a conversation. At least in his wolf form, all the wolves could hear each other within a pack.

"Jacob," Bella began gently, "do you remember the story of the Third Wife?"

"Of course I do," he snapped at her. "I'm surprised you haven't forgotten it by now, since you were just a lowly _human_ like me when you heard it."

Patiently ignoring this tone, a trait that was born not of human characteristics nor of vampire imposition, but strictly from years of experience dealing with a rapidly-growing child, a suspicious father, and two packs of jumpy wolves, Bella continued. "Why the third?"

Jacob, of course, did not see where she was going at first. "Because Taha Aki had two wives who had already died before he married his true spiritual wife," he answered impatiently. "He _loved_ her, and when she died, he went to her body and stayed with her."

"But the legend _does_ say he had other wives," Bella reminded him. "He had many children from these women, and all of them inherited the potential to pass on the wolf gene."

"Yes…" Jacob said slowly, "but after he met the Third Wife, he wanted no others."

"She died trying to save him." Bella kept a low, respectful tone, knowing how important Jacob's legends were, even if she felt some of them made no sense or were leaving out important details. "Of course he mourned and grieved for her. But if she hadn't died that way, if she'd just gotten old and passed away in her sleep, who's to say he wouldn't have chosen another wife?"

"No," Jacob countered, "he stopped transforming when he married her so he could grow old and die with her. He loved her more than any of the other wives."

"Does that mean he didn't love his other wives at all?" Bella asked him.

Jacob peered up at her, his mouth a thin line. "I don't know. The legend doesn't say."

"Your legends don't say a lot of things," Edward almost growled. "And for some unknown reason, you have forgotten that anything not covered by legend might actually be worth thinking about."

For a moment, Jacob took offense to this tone. The stories of his people were important to him, even if, as Nessie had pointed out, he no longer remained in their constant company. However, the wild bronze hair waving angrily at him reminded Jacob that this was Renesmee's father speaking right now, not an old friend nor an old enemy. As such, Jacob held himself in check with the hope that this could still be turned around in his favor if he only behaved. Perhaps Edward, unlike his daughter, would remember what Jacob had given up to preserve the Cullen family if he didn't antagonize the old young man.

Edward knew all this the moment it crossed Jacob's mind and swallowed the profanity waiting on his tongue. For all Jacob claimed to have given up to save the vampires and the innocent, pregnant human bride from an attack, everyone was well aware that Jacob had gained more in return. Leadership over a pack of his own (which he willingly embraced), a place to live and funds to support himself, unrestricted access to _both_ sides of the old treaty line so that he could visit with family and friends, not that he'd been in a while. Jacob wanted for nothing. More to the point, all of them, wolf and vampire alike, had benefitted from the alliance when it really mattered. No one had suffered so much as a scratch when the Volturi made their grand entrance and meek exit. Edward did not see that Jacob had sacrificed very much after all, nor did he feel that the steps Jacob had taken would have entitled him to _breeding rights_ if things had taken a turn for the worse at one crossroads or another. Edward's daughter was neither property nor a bargaining chip.

Renesmee was Edward's miracle in far more ways than anyone had ever dared to dream. The fact of her birth was remarkable enough, with her coppery locks so much like his mother's that he'd long ago given up any hope of seeing again in anyone but himself. But when she reached puberty at the chronological age of five, an entirely new avenue opened up. For in the innocent confusion of a girl becoming a woman, it came to light that Edward and Bella's daughter possessed the most human power of all: procreation. In her existed the potential for Renesmee to build her own family if she so desired, lovely children to bear little pieces of the Masen and Swan ancestors, a beautiful thing in which Edward silently rejoiced. Jacob, in direct contrast to the Cullen clan, was not surprised at all by this ability, rolling his eyes with a 'well, _duh_' and a smile. According to the Quileute way of thinking, the primary purpose of the imprint was reproduction, securing the next generation of protectors, with the added bonus of making the wolf in question into a more complete individual.

Edward hated Jacob's view of things, despite its similarity to his own. For while Edward would have liked very much for his child to know the joy of parenthood and be satisfied in that way if she wanted it, Jacob appeared to think of Nessie as a vessel. _His_ vessel, meant to produce a stronger race of wolves. That Jacob loved the girl, there was no doubt. So far lust had not yet become part of the overall picture, as it had never been something Renesmee "needed" from Jacob, but Edward got the distinct impression that her fertility was still too large a factor in the equation. Being Esme's son and Rosalie's brother, Edward had a poor opinion of men who thought this way about the women they claimed to love.

Truth be told, Edward had never wanted his daughter to marry into the Quileute clan, to be regarded as the oddball, the half-vampire freak amidst a cluster of wolves and humans—this concern had plagued him long before Jacob began to form concrete thoughts of replication. During their time of life-threatening crisis, Edward accepted that it was likely to happen, and he'd been glad that his little girl would have someone to protect her, but it was not a situation he was pleased about. If Renesmee eventually chose a life lived as a wolf's mate, Edward knew he could do nothing to change that without alienating her, but still, he hoped. It was his wish that his daughter would someday find a reason to go on with her own life as a free woman, independent of Jacob and all his tribal obligations and biological imperatives.

As it turned out, there was a way after all. While the news of the existence of even more of her kind—dhampyrs, he might as well get used to saying it—was an excellent catalyst for the leaving part, Edward had long ago, in the solace of his many books, seen his way toward securing for his child a future in which she was not an immortal source of endless reproduction for anyone's puppies. All he had to do was keep his mouth shut and not stop Jacob from setting himself up for failure. _Give him just enough rope to hang himself_ was the expression. Today, the noose was finally in place.

"For eight years, you have lived among us," Edward said smoothly. "Eight years since the Volturi tried us, and we've been lucky enough to avoid war in all that time. Every advantage was provided for you to attend university, to read, to learn something instead of simply spending all your time tinkering with cars and behaving as our daughter's elder brother."

Jacob winced at the reminder. He'd been perfectly sincere when he'd explained, so many years ago, that a wolf would be to his imprint whatever she needed: big brother, best friend, lover, whatever was required of him. That was how it was explained to him, and that was what he witnessed with the imprinted wolves around him. What he had not said was how he knew one person could be all those things to the same person in the same lifetime. There was no legend that covered such a thing, and in that regard he was aware that he was on shaky ground.

"You would think," Edward commented, staring into the young shape shifter's eyes, "that in all that time, you'd have picked up at least one book besides a mechanic's reference guide. If you had, perhaps this would not have come as such a surprise."

"What are you saying?" Jacob asked cautiously, eyes narrowed.

Edward did his best not to smirk. "Have you ever heard of the Westermarck effect?"

Jacob shook his head, certain that whatever it was, it probably wasn't good for him.

"It's a well-documented psychological effect, observed in cultures all over the world—" Edward began to explain, but Jacob was impatient as always.

"Spare me the psychobabble and get to the point, Edward." The roll of his eyes was bravado—the twitching leg was anxiety, unconcealed and unstoppable.

Bella sighed, empathetic for her friend and his impending cognitive dissonance, but not so much that she was going to side against Edward. This was, after all, about her daughter's life.

"There's another term for it," Edward told the boy before him, his tone and face stony to mask the victory. "It's called reverse sexual imprinting."

Jacob stopped breathing, his stomach tight with dread as he waited for the elaboration he didn't want.

"It means," Edward continued, slipping into the lecture mode he'd learned from a century at Carlisle's side, "that whoever a child remains in constant proximity to between the ages of birth to six years—or in Renesmee's case, we think birth to two or three years of age—is psychologically imprinted on that child as Family. It applies to parents, siblings, nannies, other children in the same day care…you get the idea. The child's mind imprints that these people are her kin, and therefore any kind of romantic relationship with them would be taboo. Some believe that it's actually an evolved, biological trait designed to prevent incest from occurring."

"I see," Jacob murmured to himself, struggling with this information, looking for a way around it. "But I'm not—"

"It doesn't matter," Edward interrupted. "You were with her every day during that critical time in her development. And it does no good to argue that she matured intellectually at an even faster rate than her physical body. You carried her and fed her from the day she was born."

"Oh god," Jacob whispered, closing his eyes. "But it's not like that for everyone. Quil and Claire—"

"Claire is _ten,_" Bella finally cried out, feeling as though she was defending the little Makah child. "She likes boy bands and candy and kids at school her own age. You can't possibly tell me she's even remotely entertaining the notion of marrying a man who was practically her second father all these years! Certainly not if he continues to treat her as a little sister until she's an adult!" It had bothered Bella for many years now that Quil appeared to think nothing of eventually marrying a woman whose diapers he had changed as a toddler. Jacob's explanations never sat well with her, but for the sake of keeping peace between what would otherwise have been enemy clans, she held her tongue. Given the amount of distrust the wolves still held for her gifted family, Bella never believed Quil would listen to her anyway. A certain amount of guilt went along with this silence, but for better or worse she'd done it. Now the silence was broken, and she couldn't take it back. Nor did she want to. "Maybe," she exhaled, "if you and Quil had stayed clear of Nessie and Claire until they were older, things might have worked out differently, and you could have fallen in love a little more naturally at the right time. But you both gave in to the impulse to spend every waking moment with them instead of staying away and living somewhat normal lives without them. And this, what's going on with Renesmee, and what _will_ happen again with Claire, is the result."

"The imprint…" Jacob muttered again, all quiet desperation.

"Just stop it, Jake!" Bella shouted suddenly, grasping her longtime friend by the shoulder and shaking him as much as she could without breaking his bones or snapping his spinal cord. "Didn't you listen to anything my daughter said when she left? _Your_ imprint didn't make her want you as a husband! You think Claire suddenly decided, at the age of two, that she was going to marry Quil someday? All she knew was that someone was there to play peek-a-boo with her and take her to the beach every day. That's not a foundation for a marriage, that's a grown man playing nanny and expecting it to turn into something else in fifteen or twenty years without a problem. Are you all so blinded by the imprint that you can't see past your own noses?"

"Leah used to say that," Jacob groaned. And indeed she had, and often, although at the time it had been more of a response to Sam Uley's betrayal of her with her own cousin, and subsequently to Emily's well-intentioned but inadvisable request that Leah be a bridesmaid at the wedding. Leah had eventually R.S.V.P'd with her middle finger. At this moment, Jacob envied Leah Clearwater and her unimprinted existence. She was still feisty, outspoken, and tough as nails like her mother, but unlike Jacob, she'd taken the time to improve the quality and structure of her life and further her education. With two degrees under her belt, a decent start on her career at a law firm in Port Townsend, and no daily plague of Sam's mental voice, she wasn't ecstatic, but she was calmer and more content than she'd ever hoped to be. During those times when she still transformed, which were proving to be rarer and rarer as time passed, her mind was not the spiteful place to be it once was, and Jacob enjoyed the communication, the shared memories that had nothing to do with supernatural elements or star-crossed lovers.

He wondered what she would think about _this_.

"Maybe you should talk to Leah," Edward suggested immediately, his heart making room for real sympathy now. For Edward could hear the small echo in the back of Jacob's mind, growing louder as the boy's acceptance grew in tiny increments: _what am I going to do now?_ While the young father in Edward was still rejoicing that his daughter did not have the weight of an unasked-for imprinting hanging over her anymore, the old man who was Jacob's friend and, to a degree, his family, did not wish for more heartache than was necessary. Edward knew Leah was excellent at providing perspective—it was one thing about her he admired, though he would never admit it to her or anyone else. And right now, Edward knew she could be what Jacob really needed: a kindred spirit.


	2. Paradigm Shift

Chapter 2 Paradigm Shift

"Well what did you expect, idiot?"

Evidently the "kind" in "kindred spirit" didn't mean what Jacob thought it did. But beneath the exasperated face of the woman who sat across the small kitchen table from him, he could detect the undercurrent of compassion. Somewhere in there. _Way_ deep inside.

"I think you know what I expected," Jacob answered, drumming his fingers on Leah's dinette set. She had a small but comfortable apartment near the waterfront. Jacob recognized the couch and armchair from a few of their lupine mental conversations. The construction was sturdy, intended to withstand the giant wolf form, but from the looks of the apartment, Leah had attained excellent control of her transformations; Jacob saw no tell-tale scratch marks or rips anywhere.

Depressed, he turned back to his mug of coffee—Renesmee hated when he drank coffee, said it made his sweat smell strange—and tried to find a way to explain to Leah what he'd lost without having to resort to shape-shifting. The best method of communication was effective, but hardly private, and the whole fiasco was embarrassing enough already. "I…she…I lost _everything,_ Leah. It's like the world tilted on a new axis, or stopped spinning, or…I don't know, something. I'm completely thrown off course."

"First of all," Leah snorted, "the world is still spinning just fine." She'd seen all too many pack brothers mooning over girls. It drove her insane, listening to them feel that all these women were the key to all life, when in reality they were just people. "Contrary to the emotional brainwashing of the imprint, the universe does not actually revolve around your…what did she call herself again?"

"A dhampyr," Jacob grumbled, well aware that Ness had uploaded an updated map of Rio de Janerio to her phone. He knew exactly who lived there, too.

"Right, dhampyr, whatever," Leah plunged ahead quickly in the way she knew Jake needed her to. She wasn't actually a cold-hearted bitch, but like Renesmee, Leah knew Jacob well. Bella had grown too parental over the last eight years and liked to approach interspecies conflicts gently at first, a necessary talent for someone who often had to keep the peace between wolves, vampires, half-vamps, and her human father, but it wasn't the right way to handle Jake, not when he got like this. Leah and the Cullen child, on the other hand, knew a straightforward, hard-ass attitude and the awful truth were the best tools for this job.

"Like I was saying," Leah continued, "the world has not been speared into apocalypse because she isn't by your side. I'm fine. Seth and Embry and even Quil are fine. I think after a while, you will be, too. Your heart is still beating without her, and so are everyone else's. We're not all wallowing in your misery, nor are we in any mortal danger just because the girl broke up with you. Seeing as she thinks of herself as your sister, technically she wasn't really dating you in the first place."

"You don't get it," Jacob muttered. "You didn't lose everything."

"I don't get it?" Leah repeated, narrowing her eyes. "_I_ don't get it, Jake? You're telling me I don't know what it's like to have someone I love walk out on me?"

Jacob stared down at his own hand. "Sorry," he mumbled.

"Damn right, you're sorry," Leah growled. "You need to get over yourself. You didn't lose everything. Hell, I can't tell that you lost _any_thing. Your dad's still alive, your sisters are both happily married and have kids to carry on the bloodline, nobody died or was mortally wounded…you're just moping and whining because you didn't get your way. Stop acting like a child."

"I lost a _family,_ Leah!" It baffled him that no one seemed to understand the long-reaching impact this had on him, the massive upheaval that was now his life. "My future!"

"You don't lose your future, Jake," Leah told him sadly, shaking her head. "I know it feels that way—I remember, I really do—but that's not the way it works. Your future just takes a different path. And as for losing a family…I don't think you've really lost that, either. Bella and Edward, and even that mother hen, Esme…well, they care about you, and they're loyal." She did not look especially happy to be saying this. There was a time when it required all her control not to spit when she said Bella's name, having spent several years resenting the young mother and her half-breed child for robbing her of the peaceful existence she thought she'd have with her new Alpha. It took time before she came to realize the very truth she'd just passed on to Jacob, but once she had, she shaped a better future for herself. Leah believed Jacob could do this as well, but he needed to get over this hurdle first. "You didn't have a child who died. You didn't have a wife who passed away or left you for someone else. For fuck's sake, you weren't even sleeping with the girl. You felt a certain way about her, and she didn't feel the same. Given her explanation, I can't say I blame her. That's it, that's all, the end."

"You think that's all there is to it?" Jacob replied bitterly. "Do you not remember the strength of an imprint?"

"Yes, I do, Jacob Black," Leah scowled in return. "I remember it with Sam, and I remember it with you, and every brother in between and after. But I'm telling you that you need to look at it a different way if you want to move forward."

"She was my _mate,_ Leah." They both winced, registering his use of the vampiric term. Their people never referred to spouses as mates. Husband, spirit wife, imprint, soul mate, but never the animal term _mate._ Their kind preferred to think of themselves as human, fur notwithstanding.

But Leah latched onto it, knowing the family of leeches she hated and (occasionally) grudgingly admired applied a connotation of mutual devotion that the imprint neglected to account for. "That implies a relationship you never actually had with her, but if that's how you want to describe it, okay. Let's work with it." Jacob eyed her warily, searching for a sign that she was going to turn this around on him, but she only nodded firmly and pressed on. "Surely you don't think you're the first of our tribe to lose a 'mate.'"

"That was different," Jacob sighed, worried about the familiar turn this discussion was taking. "The spirit wives died."

"I've listened to all the same legends you have, Jake." Leah took a sip of her coffee. She tried not to let herself become addicted to any kind of luxury, preferring to pay her student loans quickly and hoard the rest in a savings account, but premium quality coffee was her indulgence. "We're always the heroes, every sacrifice wins the battle, and in spite of the casualties, our tribe always emerges victorious. If we were that successful at everything we did, we'd be ruling the entire peninsula, not crammed into a tiny reservation. Do you really think the elders are going to pass down the Legend of the Betrothed Girl Who Rejected the Werewolf Chief?"

"You're starting to sound like Edward," Jacob groaned, cradling his forehead in one hand while idly stirring the spoon around in his mug and relaying bits of his conversation with his non-in-laws.

"Ugh," Leah grunted after a while. "I never thought I'd say it, but the bloodsuckers were pretty spot-on."

Jacob nodded, his eyes still downcast, slowly coming to accept that things were not going to change just because he wanted them to, although that did not make him feel he'd lost any less.

"Look, Jacob," his friend said carefully, "maybe it's better for Ness this way, too. The life you wanted to have with her…well, I never got the impression she would be especially happy handing you a beer and a remote and waiting for you to knock her up."

_"Leah!"_

"Jacob, just shut up and listen, okay?" she insisted. "I've seen how it is with Sam and Emily. She told Sam she was done after the last one, that she didn't want anymore kids. I mean, who could blame her, right? She's tired from chasing little ones and changing diapers all day, and she wants to focus on the kids she already has instead of neglecting them while she makes more. Just when she was about to get some relief with the oldest one starting school, she found out she was a few weeks along with another one. She's devastated. She had awful depression after little Levi was born, and I just know it's going to be even worse when the next one comes, but Sam is completely clueless. He has this idea that his love is enough to keep her happy, because _he_ is so happy being around her. It's like he's looking at a pretty picture or a statue instead of a real human being. He's blind to reality because—"

"Because of the imprint," Jacob finished. He hadn't really spent an abundance of time around La Push much in the last few years, preferring to speak to Sam via short mental messages that were more about passing along vampire intelligence. Ever since he moved to Canada with Renesmee and her family, his father and Rachel generally met him at a halfway point in Port Angeles when they wanted to visit with each other over dinner. He had no idea things were so hard in the Uley household, or that his former Alpha was such a jackass.

"He's such a jackass," Leah complained, making the corner of Jacob's mouth twitch behind his wrist. "He hasn't stopped once to think of how he's going to feed all those mouths with his crappy job, or that his house is too small, or that Emily's mind and body haven't fully recovered from having all the other kids, or that she could just completely snap from the strain one day. He takes everything for granted. It's all about him, _his_ rez, _his_ tribe, _his_ position as Alpha." She concentrated on a spot on the wall somewhere above Jacob's head. It was one of her most effective methods of staying in control in emotionally charged situations. "I can't believe I ever loved such a selfish bastard."

Jacob squirmed uncomfortably, but said nothing. He left Leah to her bitter thoughts as he reflected on his own shameful, selfish desires. Leah's judgment of Sam felt like a potential judgment of Jacob. He'd been so happy orbiting Nessie, and the potential to have that happiness endlessly was alluring to the point of distraction from the sisterly nature of her feelings. As long as he kept transforming, he would never age or die naturally, and Ness had inherited her father's immortality. Jake couldn't honestly say he hadn't imagined having many children over the decades. Not one every year, because he wasn't a moron, and he knew he couldn't keep counting on Nessie's family to support _his_ kids, certainly not hundreds of them. But yes, he'd thought that they could easily have one or two every ten years, maybe even three.

_Three per decade. God, I was going to have forty-five children with her, probably more. Do I really want that many kids, even spaced apart?_ Because of his experience raising Renesmee, Jacob had an idea of what fatherhood entailed. But there was no justifiable reason to have that many offspring, at least not a reason that had anything to do with love. That much reproduction wasn't about having a family; it was about producing an army.

Jacob had never asked Renesmee if she wanted…anything, really. Small things, like giving applause, sympathy, or laughter when she needed it without having to be told, were intrinsic to their particular bond, but that was hardly the same as understanding her life goals. He'd been so caught up in planning his version of the future that they never had the really important conversations. Knowing she could have a baby, he'd automatically assumed that she would want _some_ children, but as it turned out that she didn't want Jacob, not in that way, perhaps there were all kinds of things she didn't want.

"What's Emily going to do?" he asked quietly, remembering the strong, kind woman who always saved him a plate of eggs and glowed with inner beauty under Sam's attention. He hadn't seen her in years, and he wondered if she looked different now.

"I'm not sure," Leah sighed. "She asked me for help. I took her to a Planned Parenthood clinic, but after we went, she said she couldn't…well, she just doesn't believe in it, and I get that. She wants to put the baby up for adoption, I think, and she said she wants to get tubal ligation surgery so she can't have this happen anymore, since her husband heals too readily for a vasectomy to even be an option. Sam isn't going to like any of it, but I'm going to be with her when she tells him. What he's doing to her is neglect."

Neglect.

The word spun and swirled in Jacob's mind, slipping into the vocabulary of his conscience. He'd taken Nessie's affection for granted, not seeing that the little sea monster he played with was gone, and in her place stood a woman with her own dreams, emotional needs that he couldn't fulfill, and above all, _options._ In his quest for genetic completion, he'd neglected to ask the fundamental questions of the girl he'd been so sure he loved: _Is this what you want? Are you happy?_

How could he say he loved her when he treated her that way?

Jacob looked at his friend, the resolve in her face. It had taken Leah a long time to get to a point where she could even consider being supportive of Emily in anything, but somehow she found a reserve of compassion for the woman she once and again called cousin, and the strength to get over Sam in the process.

Without even realizing it, Jacob found himself saying, "I'd like to help you."

* * *

_No way, man. No freakin' way._

Quil wasn't taking Jacob's personal news too well.

_Yeah, it's true. She's gone. She isn't coming back, at least not for me. I tried asking the fortune teller, but that's useless. Her mother said Nessie's sorry she hurt me, but I shouldn't expect to hear from her for a long time. Apparently that's the best way not to "reopen the wound."_ Jacob sat on his haunches, making his wolf's body comfortable on an enormous stuffed pillow in a corner of Leah's bedroom. Though he didn't intend to leave the room, Leah felt uncomfortable being in the same apartment with him while he was technically naked, so she left him alone while she ran her errands. He was glad for the privacy—it was sheer luck that he was able to talk to Quil without any others of his pack transformed and listening in, and not having Leah in the next room made this conversation a little easier.

_Did you…I mean, had you even…?_

Reading into the suggestive nature of the question, Jacob opted to head him off at the pass. _Never. Look, man, I learned some stuff that doesn't look so good for you and Claire._

The link the two wolves shared was quiet, but Jacob was startled to see Quil briefly picture a grown woman. A red-haired woman with freckles, green eyes, and a warm smile.

_Who is that?_

Quil dropped onto his side in his backyard and rolled onto his back, looking up at the cloudy sky. A hawk shrieked overhead, and the sound of clinking plates and dishwater carried through the open window to his ears. His chest heaved with reluctance, but he revealed the truth.

_My wife._

Jacob gave a startled whine. _Your…your _what!

_Kara and I have been seeing each other for months, Jacob. A week ago we went to Vegas, and…well, you get the picture._

Jacob did indeed get the picture. Quil had a vivid memory of a tiny chapel, not gaudy or cheesy, but simple and dignified. He remembered a bright green dress, a very old man serving as minister, and the most intense, loving kiss of his lifetime.

_What…just…what?_ Jacob was convinced this was the most bizarre month of his life. Had he really been so wrapped up in Nessie that he'd become negligent in his duties as Alpha?

_You know Claire's parents divorced a few years ago, right?_ Jacob indicated that he did, recalling a brief conversation with Sam on the subject. Claire's father, John, was Emily's brother. _Well, this year Claire's dad stopped bothering with visitation. Her mom's had a rough time with it, but she told me she's not worried about Claire missing out on anything, because I've always been a better father than her ex-husband ever was._

Claire's mother, Sariah, was permitted to know only so much about the existence of werewolves—more than most, because she was the mother of an imprinted child, but not everything. She'd been told by Billy Black and Sam Uley that Claire's and Quil's destinies were interminably intertwined, and that Quil would protect her daughter at all costs from any and every danger. The tribe had even placed Claire's father in a local job as incentive for the little family to move to La Push so Quil could see the child as often as he liked. That Quil was a wolf, Claire's mother knew. That the burden of childcare would not fall solely on himself and his wife, Claire's father knew. But the fact that had been kept from Claire's parents was the general expectation among those in the know that there would eventually be the equivalent of an arranged marriage.

It would have been easy to speculate that the father learned of the unofficial betrothal and was too horrified to stay, but this was not the case. Most members of the tribe wrote the man off as an uninterested dad, not the first in their community. But in reality, the Makah man was resentful. Every day he watched his little girl become more and more enraptured by the enormous boy who seemed content to play Teen Nursemaid. His wife commented often on how closely the two were bonding, how patient Quil was with her, trying to make a point about the kind of father-daughter relationship she felt was missing between Claire and John. Claire herself spoke non-stop of Quil, in her babyish, innocent way, and it seemed there were in-laws everywhere encouraging, even insisting, that Claire be allowed to spend all her free time with this man-boy who wouldn't go away, until finally John Young had enough of being the second string father to his own flesh and blood daughter and decided to take his family away. Unfortunately, Sariah refused to go, and would not agree let him take Claire back to their Neah Bay home in Makah country.

It wasn't until Claire's mother called Quil a father that the young man realized the full extent of the damage his imprint had done to a once close, promising young family. Furthermore, it awoke him to the same truth Jacob was facing now. Quil had hoped, for his Alpha's sake, that the half-vampire child's unusual mind and growth would mean things could be different for them. Regardless, Quil knew _he_ could never do what the tribal legends said his imprint demanded of him. There was no end to his love for little Claire, but that love came with the proper perspective now. She needed a father. A girl would always need a father, and that was Quil's sole purpose where Claire was concerned. He still looked after her, but he stopped babysitting on Saturday nights and started getting to know the gentle, smiling redhead from work.

_Does she know about us? About Claire?_

The sound of the kitchen faucet ceased, replaced by footsteps, the groan of furniture, and the sound of thick paper flipping. Quil knew exactly what his wife was doing: looking through their wedding photos again. He'd already ordered an enlargement of her favorite shot, and a special frame.

_Kara knows that I'm a surrogate dad to a little girl who needs one. And as for the rest, you never ordered me to keep it a secret, so yeah, I told her, once I was sure how I felt about her. It was the scariest day of my life. I _showed_ her what I am, and asked her if she could still love me enough to stay with me. She took a whole week to think about it—longest damn week I've ever had—but she said yes. I proposed to her on the spot._

Jacob watched as his friend replayed the memories—the ones he was willing to share, at any rate. Every image was punctuated with joy and contentment. _Quil, why didn't you tell me? Does anyone know?_

_Everyone knows, Jacob._ At the surprised yelp that echoed through Leah's apartment, Quil quickly amended his statement._ What I mean is: they know she's in the picture. You're the first I've told about the wedding. Nobody told you anything because, well, to be honest, you haven't checked in for six months, at least not about anything but business. And, I guess, because we weren't sure how you'd react._

Jacob curled in on himself, forming a large, furry ball in the center of the oversized dog bed. _Well, um…congratulations? If this is what you want, I'm happy for you._

Quil sighed with relief. He'd been dreading this particular conversation for a reason. It made no difference to him what the tribal council had to say—they had no right to give orders to him or anyone else with regards to private matters and personal lives, so it didn't matter if they roared in outrage or nodded in agreement—but Quil was more than a little afraid his Alpha might order him to divorce his beloved wife, and that he'd be unable to disobey. He suspected Sam probably would have done as much, but fortunately for everyone, Jacob was not Sam. _Thank you, Jake. Kara is…she's amazing. I hope you have a chance to meet her while you're in Washington._

Before he could agree to any such thing, Jacob had to ask the question he was somehow most frightened of. _Do you love her?_

Kara made a contented little sigh, the one that Quil adored. It signaled a world in which everything was good and peaceful and right, even if it wasn't what he expected.

_Yes, Jacob. So much._

It was such a foreign thing, falling in love this way, not an instantaneous bond that didn't take any work, but a mutual growth of trust. It was impossible to say what the future would hold, but Quil found a new kind of satisfaction in having to earn long-term happiness. He wouldn't have it any other way.

Shutting his eyes to the four walls around him, Jacob asked, _So what does this mean?_

With more compassion than Jacob thought possible of his old friend, Quil told him: _For you, I figure it means there's always hope. Maybe just not the way you originally thought._

* * *

Sam had never felt more bewildered in his life, but he knew one thing, one action he could rightfully take.

"Get the hell out of my house!"

The two eldest children, Deanne and Sam Jr., were outside, hiding along the side wall of the house and holding hands, frightened into silence by the way Daddy yelled at Mommy's company. Two-year-old Gina and eleven-month-old Levi startled awake at the sound of their father's raised voice. The baby began to wail, and Gina climbed down from the toddler bed in her room and ran to her mother, clutching at her legs.

"It's my house, too, Sam!" Emily shouted back, scooping up the crying infant from his crib (located in the living room, because there just wasn't any other space in the two-bedroom house to accommodate it). She bounced him carefully, his preferred method of being calmed, keeping his eyes facing her good side.

Jacob, accustomed to living with ageless vampires, found Emily's physical changes jarring. Gone was the freshness of the twenty-one-year-old lady he remembered from his teens. Instead there were dark circles under her eyes, a sloppy bun in her hair, and the droopy, run down countenance of one with too many labors and not enough rest. The red claw marks on Emily's face had paled with time long ago; when she felt angry or frustrated and sad, like right now, they stood out white and damning against her flushed skin.

"I invited Leah to come here," she said in a lower volume, "and I say she and Jacob are going to stay, and you're going to sit down and listen, because I just can't seem to get through to you any other way." Emily was not exaggerating. Everything about her, from her cracked fingernails to her raggedy shoes, from her poor posture to the lines on her face, screamed _I am exhausted_, but her husband had gone deaf and blind to her signals. She couldn't say when Sam had stopped observing things like that, when he stopped hearing her say 'Can you send someone else to patrol so you can stay home and bathe the kids? I'm worn out.' After a few years, she stopped saying anything that wasn't absolutely necessary, but that didn't seem to register with Sam at all. Nothing did, at least nothing negative, not when it came from her mouth, which was why she was so grateful for her renewed relationship with Leah.

"Oh, I heard you," Sam grumbled, lowering his voice a little for Levi's sake. "You want to give away my baby. And I said no. I have parental rights, and I'm not signing them away. End of discussion."

Jacob gathered little Gina up and pressed the child's head to his shoulder, patting the girl's back gently. He tried to meet Sam's eyes, to warn him to keep his cool, but Sam was studiously ignoring his former lieutenant. This was the only way Sam could think of to nurse his pride at the moment while staying focused on the battle at hand.

"Where are you going to put another baby, Sam?" Leah demanded, quiet but fierce. Sam remembered that tone from several arguments he'd lost—it was also the same tone she used every time she trounced opposing counsel in court. "It can't sleep in the dresser drawer, you know."

"Screw you, Leah," Sam barked. He never said so, but once the Volturi left Washington and Leah elected to remain a part of Jacob's pack, he'd been _ecstatic_ that he didn't have to share headspace with her anymore. If Leah had been hurt because she could feel Sam's love for Emily, Sam had been tortured because he felt every ounce of Leah's bitterness and betrayal. Just as she had seen fit to throw her spite in his face then, he hit her below the belt now. "You're jealous because your cousin's a better baby-maker, and you can't stand it."

"Oh, for the love of crap," Leah groaned. She knew Sam well enough to know this was the tactic he would take. Out of guilt and necessity, he'd been as civil to her as he could manage when he'd been her Alpha, but they'd been on the same side of a battle then, which was no longer the case. Leah knew Sam would see today as an attack, and she was well prepared for personal insults. "This is not about me. This is Emily's fifth pregnancy in six years. You've got your wife popping out kids like some kind of puppy mill, and you don't even notice how hard her life is. When the next one is born and Emily's post-partum depression is so bad she can't make herself get up to nurse, what are you going to do? You can't even pay for birth control; how are you going to pay for anti-depressants and formula and even more diapers?"

"None of your goddamn business, that's how!" Sam yelled, forgetting the serenity he'd once possessed. Staring down seventy or so vampires was easy, but this brand of emotional assault made him frantic. "This is my family, and it's got nothing to do with you!" Outside, Junior began to cry, hiding his face in his big sister's shirt, and the two little ones in the house were howling once more.

"We're not your _family,_" Emily hissed, bouncing the baby again, "we're a bunch of knick-knacks on your shelf. I spend all day with my children, and I love them more than anything, but I never get a break, not even for a minute. You come in, you pat everyone on the head, you kiss me and take me into the bedroom, and you ask me to feed you, our four kids, and your thirteen brothers waiting outside. Then you take off with Jared or Paul to the Rusty Bear Trap and claim you're 'patrolling' while I clean everything up and try to put four children to bed and get all your crap ready for work the next day. Is this what you call devotion?"

"Look," Sam said uncomfortably, "if it bothers you that much, I won't have the boys over for dinner all the time. They have homes they can eat at. You should have said something sooner."

"Are you kidding me?" Emily cried. "I've been telling you for years, but you never listen. I said I didn't want to have anymore babies, either, and look how that turned out. I can't keep this up anymore, Sam. I'm _tired._"

"All moms are tired," Sam insisted. "You think my mother wasn't tired? She had to raise me all by herself, with no husband around to provide for her. If she could hack being a mom, holding down a job, and keeping a house, you can handle being a mother."

"Sam, you're an only child," Leah pointed out before he could get that unearned triumphant look on his face. "And the two of you lived with your grandmother until you were ten. Your mom didn't have more kids than hands and no one to help her."

"You're not here every day," Sam growled back. "I know my wife and my household a hell of a lot better than you do. Emily's got a routine, and as long as she sticks to it, everything works out. She's just emotional right now because of the hormones, but she'll be fine if you just leave her alone."

"Fine? I'm _fine_?" Emily shouted. "Household routine…that's all you think I need? 'Just make sure Emily gets the toilet bowl cleaned and the dishes done for fifteen to twenty people, and she'll be fine.' You stupid bastard! I'm a lot of things, but I'm definitely not _fine. _You haven't the slightest idea how close I've come to just losing it. Sometimes I feel so hopeless and depressed I think about pulling out your gun and killing myself!"

Sam stopped cold at this revelation. Jacob's head whipped around to look at the frazzled woman, and even Leah gasped in surprise. Deanne sobbed into her little brother's hair, having seen enough nighttime television when her mother collapsed from exhaustion to know what these awful words meant. The children all cried, the sounds of the forest echoed through the open windows, and the adults gaped at each other.

_Maybe now he'll finally understand._

_Jesus, why didn't she ever tell me?_

_No! I can't live without her!_

_Is this what I was going to do to Renesmee?_

"Leah," Jacob said quietly, handing over the quivering toddler in his arms, "take Emily and the kids in her van and go to my dad's. Leave me your car keys, and I'll meet you there in a few minutes."

The bereft family filed out of the house, taking nothing but a diaper bag, the baby's car seat, and the clothes on their backs. Sam watched them go in silence, not daring to move while Jacob had that particular expression flaming across his face. Finally, when the sound of the minivan's engine disappeared down the road, Jacob spoke.

"You really are Joshua Uley's son, aren't you?"

"Hey, I didn't walk out on them," Sam spat, knuckles turning white as he clenched his fists in self-restraint. The last thing he wanted to do was admit, even to himself, that Jacob was right; this was exactly how Sam's father treated his mother, right up until Joshua skipped town. "They left _me._"

Jacob stepped around the older man, searching the kitchen until he found a box of black garbage bags. Sam watched as Jacob filled the bags with clothes, a few toys and blankets, diapers and bottles and canisters of cheap formula, toothbrushes and children's Tylenol, Emily's socks and underwear and make-up, and a manila envelope marked "Birth Certificates and Shot Records." He loaded everything into Leah's car, hoping he hadn't forgotten anything that couldn't be replaced. Finally he went to Sam's porch step and spoke quietly through the screen door.

"Emily may come back to you, or she may not." The wind behind him blew sand into the air, coating the front porch with a layer of dust. "But don't think for an instant that just because you imprinted on her means everything is going to work out fine by itself. Maybe you _feel_ like she holds you up, but that doesn't mean she's supposed to actually shoulder you as a burden."

"Fuck you," Sam hissed, though he still hadn't moved, he was so devastated by the weight of his mistakes pulsing in his brain. "I love her."

"Whatever you think this is you have with Emily, it's not love," Jacob growled. "You don't do this to someone you love. Be a fucking man."

As he guided the car to his father's house, Jacob pulled his cellular phone from his pocket and hit number three on his speed dial.

"Edward, listen, I know you were probably going to cut me off, but do you think maybe you can keep me funded long enough to help someone who really needs it?"

On the other end of the line, Edward clutched his wife's hand in reassurance and listened to Jacob's explanation. Here was the young man he knew, the one from before the imprint, who thought of others before himself and defied orders to protect the innocent. Here was someone Edward felt proud to call friend and brother, if not son.

"Whatever you need, Jacob."

* * *

**A/N: Thank you for reading, and a special thanks to those who have provided feedback. Have a wonderful weekend!**


	3. Reciprocal Relations

Chapter 3 Reciprocal Relations

"Leah, are you sure?" Emily asked, one hand smoothing her shirt over her protruding belly. The two women sat on one of the couches in Emily's living room, tendrils of steam curling upward from the two teacups on the coffee table. Jacob had found a three-bedroom house to rent for her in Seattle and was currently residing in her basement. If Emily had any inkling that her rescue was being bankrolled by the very cold ones her almost-ex-husband had once fervently hoped to kill, if for no other reason than their existence caused him to supernaturally bond to one cousin over another…well, Emily told herself this was all a kindness from a warm-blooded friend.

"I wouldn't have suggested it if I wasn't sure," Leah answered, crossing her legs nervously. "This isn't exactly how I envisioned having a family of my own, but this baby is my blood. Better that it comes to me instead of a stranger. You wanted an open adoption, right? This way you can see the baby more than once a year and you can be sure he'll be loved."

The thought of being a mother, something she'd desired so badly in her younger days, completely terrified Leah. She'd never babysat a child under three years old until recently, she never took child development in high school, never got placed in charge of Seth until they were both old enough to make sandwiches and stay home alone without burning the house down. She had arranged her life such that she'd be connected distantly to loved ones while preserving her solitude. Of course she _had_ held a baby before, but carrying her cousin's children with the knowledge that she'd be handing them back in a few minutes was not the same as asking to take the baby home with her at the end of the day. If she went through with this, her quiet life as a town attorney would never be the same. Goodbye to her one-bedroom apartment, her relaxation time, and her rapid career progress.

But for all her fears, for all the sacrifice, she found something stronger within, something her younger self had not possessed. She didn't want a miniature version of herself or of a lover, didn't want some idealized version of a baby that would never cry, would behave with minimal instruction, and would certainly appreciate everything its adoptive mother did for it.

Leah just wanted to love someone more than she loved herself.

"That's true," Emily murmured, looking at the family photos Claire's mother had managed to acquire for her from Sam's house. They were the only adornments she had. Despite the size of her house, Emily didn't have or want many possessions. _Keep it simple_ was her motto. Fewer things meant less to clean, so she could focus on reading to her kids and teaching them colors and shapes. Less food and dishes, because she didn't have to feed a small army anymore, meant time to rest in the evenings after the little ones had their baths. She tried not to become too dependent on Jake's assistance with the kids, knowing that eventually he wouldn't be there to pick up toys for her or watch the children while she took a quick shower. For now it was enough that he was helping her pay for daycare and finish her facilities management degree while he tried to get his business off the ground.

Emily wondered why Jacob was the man Sam couldn't seem to be, if she would have felt differently about having a fifth child with Sam if he'd been more like Jake, and if having a supportive environment like this one would have made the PPD more bearable when Levi was born. It took her a moment to recall that neither man had been all those years ago what they were now.

"Sam will be less likely to force us into a courtroom battle if he knows the baby is with a member of the tribe," Leah continued. "And…" she reached quietly for Emily's hand. "It's probably safer this way."

"Safer…" At first, Emily suspected her cousin was worried about the possibility of Sam coming after the baby, but thought better of it. He wasn't that stupid. He tried to come see her every day for the first month after she moved to Seattle, but that settled down to once a week after a few wolfish snarls from Jacob, until finally Leah threatened to file a restraining order, something that would not look good whenever the divorce was finalized and the judge was considering child custody arrangements. Now he only came to collect the children for their agreed-upon visitation. Having four kids to himself without their mother around to deal with things like fixing lunch and uncontrollable tears and, god help him, _training pants,_ proved to be an eye opener. No, Emily did not think Sam would be contesting custody, nor would he have a problem signing away his parental rights for Little Number Five.

"Safer in case the baby ever goes through the change," Leah clarified quietly, thinking of one of the top five worst days of her adult life. "I'll know what signs to look for, and I'll be able to handle an adolescent wolf."

The two women stared at each other in silence. There would be no reason for Emily's offspring to suffer the hell of transformation unless they were in the presence of a vampire with no other wolves nearby.

Both sets of eyes drifted to the hallway. The second door on the left led down to Jake's basement.

* * *

Through discreet financial assistance from his "Canadian uncle," Jacob had enough capital to open his auto repair shop. Once, when he was a boy of fifteen, this had been his master plan for adulthood. Of course, that was before he found himself amid a mythological nightmare, but he still nursed the old wish. He'd even obtained his ASE certification before he and the Cullens moved to Vancouver Island. Nessie…Renesmee, rather, had always been supportive of Jacob's dream in theory. But he'd displayed no ambition to actively pursue it, not when he was spending all his time spoiling the object of his affection and he knew he'd have to pick up and leave every place eventually anyway. Now he found himself confronted by the unexpected possibility of permanence of location, and though he missed Renesmee terribly, he found himself filling his hours with work, his mind and body both waking up to the forgotten satisfaction of productivity.

Working on cars was far easier than the business end of running a garage. Emily often saw the beam of light from the bottom of the basement door late into the night as Jacob tried to make sense of things like purchase orders, overhead, depreciating assets, OSHA regulations, state taxes, and core fees. She brought him plates of food when he didn't come up for dinner, covered him with a blanket when he fell asleep hunched over his desk, and made sure he had clean towels in his bathroom, though she wouldn't touch his dirty clothes. He never asked her to do any of it, being of the belief that Emily was his housemate, not his housekeeper. But he relished her quiet kindness and returned with his own, taking the kids to the park or the indoor playground at the mall on the weekends they weren't with Sam. Emily had time to study, or sleep, or even watch a TV show without having to waddle to the kitchen mid-scene to fill sippy cups with apple juice.

Jake wasn't sure when Emily started sorting through the cascade of paperwork, streamlining his accounting system, or installing a new computer program she'd learned about in her business management class. He couldn't remember when he started asking her for advice, or when it began to bother him not to have dinner upstairs with her and the children, or when they started having ginger-ale-and-movie night together. He could not pinpoint the first time he checked in with Bella or Edward and didn't ask about their daughter, or went a whole twenty-four hours without thinking of long, bronze curls and an overwhelming sense of loss.

All Jacob knew for certain was that when he looked at Emily's face, the scars from Sam's paw were invisible to him. When she turned thirty, he celebrated with her by taking the whole family on a tour of Theo Chocolate Factory, something Emily had mentioned always wanting to do, and the smile she gave him was unlike anything he'd ever experienced. When he passed a flower stand on the way home from work, he brought some home just to make her smile again. When Deanne came home from kindergarten with a drawing of her family, Jake was in it. When Gina and Junior found a baby bird in the yard, they went straight to Jake for help, absolutely certain that he could fix anything. When Levi had nightmares, the tiny boy sometimes cried out "Jay! Jay!" instead of "Mama!" When Emily went into labor, Jacob shut down the garage mid-job, promised the sitter a hundred-dollar bonus to stay with the kids overnight, and let Emily try to crush his fingers in her grip for hours while he pressed a cool cloth to her forehead and whispered encouragements in her ear. When eight hours had passed—her shortest labor ever—Jacob kissed Emily without even a conscious thought.

And when she looked up at him, startled and cross-eyed and sweating and _smiling,_ he kissed her again, but this time on purpose.

* * *

Emily and Jacob saw the baby only briefly, a purple, wax-covered, screaming thing with strong lungs and a misshapen head. The pediatric nurse examined the child quickly, washed it and swaddled it and placed it in the waiting arms of its mother.

Leah knew all about imprinting. She'd seen through many eyes the way gravity shifted, how everything fell away but the steel-cable connection from wolf to imprint when their eyes locked for the first time. Supernatural biology, as the dhampyr called it. Love forced upon the heart like shackles, masked by a sensation of glowing light.

This was nothing like that.

The moment Leah laid eyes on her little red-faced, swollen-eyed daughter, she knew life would be a series of battles, bottles, and sleepless nights, teething and tears and projectile vomit, arguments about homework and bedtime and boys, setting limits and second guessing herself as a parent. Always she would wonder if Emily would handle something differently, and if different was better or worse, if she was too harsh when she should be lenient or vice versa. There would be hard truths and harsh realities, things her collection of dog-eared parenting books couldn't prepare her for. But there would be moments of peace and love—real love—sprinkled throughout, little kisses and naps together, tickle monsters and pillow fights, arts and crafts and Christmas trees and trips to the beach, twirly dresses or tomboy overalls or both, the first day of school and graduation and maybe, just maybe, a hug and a thank you when it was all said and done. And she would be grateful for the gift of every single moment.

Leah named her daughter Grace.

* * *

Deanne was the only one of Emily's children who understood that someone was missing. When Mommy and Jay-jay came home from the hospital, her brothers and sisters all toddled to them, hungry for mama-kisses, but Deanne asked, "Where's the baby?"

She had a talk with her mommy that day about how the baby was going to be her cousin, not her sister. This made no sense to her, because she knew sisters and brothers came from her mommy's tummy, not cousins. Her mother used a funny word, "uh-doction," and said it meant the baby would have a different mommy.

"But Mommy, she came from you."

"Yes, honey," Emily sighed, a tear finding its way to the corner of her eye, both from emotional and physical pain. "But mommy is getting too sick to take care of any more babies." Afraid of becoming so debilitated by another round of PPD that she couldn't be bothered to get up and shower, let alone feed the kids, Emily took massive precautions to ensure this would never again be a possibility. Not only did she ask the OB/GYN that her fallopian tubes be tied, she requested they be severed and cauterized.

Deanne became upset. "If you get even sicker, are you going to give me away, too?"

"No!" Emily clutched her daughter, horrified. "No, I would never give away you or Junior or Gina or Levi! I love you, and you're mine."

"But the new baby is yours too, Mommy."

With a long sigh, Emily carded her fingers through her eldest daughter's hair. "No, sweetheart. I had that baby for Cousin Leah. It's her baby, and she loves her. Just like I love you."

Deanne took some time to think about this, hugging her mother and enjoying the pleasant sensation of having her scalp stroked.

"Will I get to see the baby?"

Emily pressed a kiss onto the top of her daughter's head, wanting to hide her face. Giving her infant to Leah was the right decision, and she had no regrets. But signing her name on the paperwork was not as easy as she'd expected it to be, and even with new anti-depressants, post-partum hormones intensified Emily's needless guilt. "Not for a while yet. But yes, one day you will. Just remember, you can't tell her she's adopted. That's a secret for her mommy to tell her."

"When can I see her?" Deanne wanted to know.

"I'm not sure yet," Emily sniffed, wiping her face quickly before pulling back to look at her child. "We need to give Cousin Leah some time to get used to being a mom, and I need some time to get well, too. But I think maybe in a few months, when the baby is bigger, we can have a play date."

"Will that make you sad, Mommy?" Deanne hated anything that made her mother cry. She hated those movies that made Emily sad, she hated broken glass when a picture of her family fell off the wall, and above all, she hated her father.

"I think maybe a little bit, at first," Emily admitted, understanding her daughter's thought process. "But it would make me sadder if we never got to see little Grace. She's your cousin, and we're supposed to love her just like we do Leah. She's family."

Confused, Deanne frowned. This really was a lot for a six-year-old to take in, and some of it still didn't make much sense. Her mother promised her that things would be okay, though, and said that she could talk about it with her family therapist if she liked. Mommy also said she would talk to Jay-jay about taking all the kids to visit little Cousin Gracie at least once a month, even if Mommy felt too sick to go. Mommy and Jay-jay said it was very important for all of them to spend time with Gracie. She heard Jacob use another funny word: Westermarck.

"Mommy," Deanne whispered, waiting to speak until after Jacob picked up her brothers' toys and smiled at them both before he left the room, "are you going to marry Jay-jay?"

Emily was not as surprised by this question as one might think. Her daughter had always been exceptionally observant. And although Jacob's kiss had come at the strangest of moments, Emily had been unconsciously waiting for it for several months.

"I don't know," Emily murmured back, well aware that Jacob could hear every word. "Maybe someday, if he ever asks me."

Standing perfectly still in the boys' bedroom, a stuffed blue dinosaur still in his hand, Jacob felt himself grin.

* * *

At the request of everyone involved, Edward and Bella flew into Seattle, checking into the Doubletree Hotel near Sea-Tac and spending a few quiet hours together before making their way to the designated stretch of Puget Sound coastline. Ever since Bella and Jasper had slain Chelsea, keeper of emotional bonds, during a thwarted assassination attempt, the Volturi and their guard had been squabbling amongst themselves, and Marcus left the coven entirely, making life much less worrisome for the Cullen clan. Their nervousness today had nothing to do with external threats but everything to do with family bindings.

"Are you sure about this?" Edward asked again. He hauled an armchair to the window, exploring the tactile sensation of the plush upholstery as he sat.

"No more than you are," his wife replied from the bathroom. Her sharp eyes examined the myriad colors in the granite countertop, searching for fractal patterns. "But she asked for this in good faith, and he agreed. I think we should be there."

"I don't like it," Edward muttered, staring out the window, watching the traffic move and crawl as the buzz of thoughts rose up from the thirteen floors worth of guest rooms below him. He preferred top floor hotel rooms, not out of a desire for penthouse luxury, but because he hated the sensation of hundreds of minds pressing down on him from above. "I'm afraid it will start all over again. They would both lose so much."

"They're aware," Bella reminded him, ghosting to her husband's side and resting her hand on his shoulder. "They're not children anymore, Edward."

"I know," Edward whispered, covering his love's hand with his own. "But they can still get hurt, and a number of innocent people along with them."

Ideally this would have looked more convincing as a family reunion and less like a clandestine drug deal if everyone met at a nice restaurant, or even at the hotel, but no one wanted to deal with food smells and enclosed spaces on top of all the combined scents of prey, mates, natural enemies, and allies. So away they went to the cleansing wind and the scent of brackish water, arriving exactly on time, thirty minutes after sunset. It did not take long for Edward to locate the rapid mental voice of the girl he most wanted to see.

_Daddy, we're over here._

He smiled so brightly, his wife was certain the humans some fifty meters away would see it. But just as he took his first human-paced step, Edward heard another voice from his left.

_Edward, I'm here but…I can't…_

Jacob stood as far away from everyone as his hearing would allow, his hands fidgeting with the keys and coins in his pockets. He still kept in touch with the Cullens, but he hadn't seen or spoken to Renesmee in five long years, and it would have been an unbelievable lie to say he had not missed her. Misunderstandings aside, they'd once been close, and losing that relationship had cost Jacob a part of himself. So when she contacted him out of the blue and said she missed him too and wanted to see him again, he automatically jumped at the chance. Now he was regretting the impulsive decision to meet. Being impetuous had its occasional merits, but in conjunction with the Cullens, it had only ever led to heartbreak. _I don't think this was a good idea after all._

"Probably not," Edward answered in a human volume, mentally confirming that his old friend had heard him. He looked over and noticed that Jacob was alone, his shoulders sagging. "Where is…?"

_She didn't want to come. Old prejudices are difficult to break. I also think…she's afraid of what I might do, and she doesn't want to witness it._

"A legitimate concern," Edward nodded. "I'm surprised you didn't listen to her."

At the moment, Jacob was contemplating that very question. Emily had never steered him wrong before, nor had she ever done anything she knew would hurt him. His relationship with her was not one of constant agreement, but this wasn't an argument about pizza toppings or whether Deanne was old enough for her own wrist-phone. This was something major, and he suddenly felt the magnitude of his foolishness for not realizing it sooner. They hadn't fought about him coming here tonight, but he should have recognized Emily's stoicism for what it was: a mask. _What am I doing?_

"Mom?" Renesmee called, pretending she wasn't perfectly aware of the subtext of her father's audible end of the conversation. She really _had_ missed Jacob all these years, the way they joked and played and hunted, the easy camaraderie and fierce loyalty from the days of old. But she was a grown woman now, still a bit young but not the spoiled little girl she'd once been, and she knew things were too different between them to ever go back to her carefree childhood. Part of the reason she'd never had direct contact with him was out of respect for the life he was trying so hard to build without her. This visit was an indulgence, but it held a purpose as well.

Renesmee stretched out a hand, and Bella jogged over to her thirteen-year-old daughter, ever mindful of human eyes. To anyone watching, it looked as though Bella was running to an elder friend and pulling her into a hug. "Momma, I missed you."

"I missed you too, sweetheart," Bella gushed. Her eyes ran over her child, noticing that Ness's hair had grown out again, her face was rosy as if she'd fed recently, and beneath her calculated black clothing, her body was not as slim as Bella remembered. "Renesmee Carlie Cullen," Bella gasped in surprise. "Why didn't you—?"

"Shh," Renesmee breathed; she and her mate focused intensely on "Jabberwocky" and the Hammurabi Code (in French), respectively.

Immediately Bella turned to the male beside her. "Nahuel," she beamed, grasping the warm-blooded dhampyr by the shoulder and pulling him into a familiar embrace. "It's so good to see you again."

"Likewise," the olive-skinned man replied, giving Bella a small kiss on the cheek in greeting. It was how he always said hello to her; it was how he wished he could greet his long-dead mother. "It's been too long, _Senhora Bella_." He gazed at the dark-haired man standing upwind who was staring at his mate. Renesmee had assured Nahuel that there was no danger in this visit, that everyone would be on friendly terms. Judging by her father's conflicted expression, Nahuel guessed things were not as simple as his _amada Nessa_ had anticipated.

While mother caught up with daughter, Edward strode over to Jacob, his unforgetting eyes looking for changes. "You look tired, Jake," he said genially, clasping hands with the earth-scented man he had spent so many years with. Edward thought he spotted a wrinkle in the corner of one eye, something that should not be there at all. Unless Jacob had intentionally stopped phasing—Edward could only think of one reason for his friend to do that. "Not sleeping?"

"Long hours at the garage this week," Jacob replied. "I need to hire another mechanic soon. Emily is doing her best to pick up the slack at home, but Sam hasn't been able to take the kids this month because of work."

Sam still remained devoted to Emily in his own way—that was something he couldn't change about himself, and the knowledge had been a constant thorn in Jacob's side for years. But Sam channeled that devotion into a specific focus now; the best way to take care of his imprint was to see to it that she didn't struggle financially in her effort to raise his children without his presence. No longer bearing the excuse of having to defend anyone from vampires, Sam acquired a stable, more lucrative job, one that demanded a serious time commitment and frequent travel. The upside was that Emily and her children reaped the benefits of bigger child support checks. The downside was an unreliable visitation schedule.

"It's taxing for her," Jacob continued, the creases in his forehead deepening, "working so hard and not getting much of a break. I hate leaving her by herself so long with the kids…" He looked down at the sand, one hand massaging the back of his neck. Jake's greatest fear was that Emily would succumb to depression again, that all his efforts to be the man she needed would be in vain. Always he watched for signs, and every evening he tried to give her at least fifteen minutes of time to herself, no matter what. What he did not realize, mostly because he was too busy worrying about her, was that Emily feared for Jake just as much, afraid he might feel overworked and undervalued. After she took her fifteen minutes of peaceful quiet, she gave him a shoulder rub, or sent him down to the basement for a little while (his man-cave, where he still worked on the occasional wood carving), or put the kids to bed early so they could have time with only each other, whether it was to make love or just sit and talk. "It's rough on all of us right now, but we're doing our best."

Edward nodded in sympathy. He couldn't remember physical exhaustion, nor financial stress. He'd never had aching joints or sore muscles. But he knew what it was to be away from his wife when he'd rather be home, to struggle with a child testing her limits, to be forced to interact with a despised, would-be rival, and to wish things could be easier. Beside him stood a completely different person than the one who so childishly insisted on getting his own way. This was Jacob, fully realized. "It's hard being a man, isn't it?"

Jacob smiled. Only Edward could get away with being seventeen and complimenting someone approaching thirty on his success at adulthood. "Yes, it is. But it's worth it." He did his best not to look, but Jake knew exactly where Renesmee was standing, and the temptation to see her again was overwhelming, even more now than when she'd made her transatlantic phone call from Cape Verde. He'd thought, when he spoke to her on the phone, that everything would be okay, that his choice was stronger than his connection to the girl he once inaccurately referred to as mate. Jacob was a husband now, and a father. Technically he was a step-father, but he was still the one who gave piggy back rides and applied cartoon bandages to boo-boos, taught Junior and Levi the secret to Alice's famous curveball, built trebuchets out of PVC pipe for extreme snowball fights, and answered to "Dad." He loved Emily and the children with all his heart. Surely that would be enough.

Emily, however, was not so sure. When Jacob told her he was going to see the half-vampire girl, Emily was afraid, and with good reason. She was a realist, and had always been heedful of what a burden it was for Jake to raise four kids not his own, in spite of his insistence to the contrary. She tried to retain as much of her independence as she could, working at Seattle Municipal Tower when she could have stayed home. For years she'd been quietly putting away money into a rainy day fund should Jacob ever decide he didn't want to be obligated to her anymore, or that he wanted a woman who could provide sons to bear the Black family name. But rain clouds come in many shapes. Emily knew in her heart that Sam still loved her in his own way, regardless of how she felt, so she was well aware of the danger that lay in Jacob's imprinting, no matter what he said about some kind of reverse imprinting phenomenon. Despite his promises and assurances, the man she loved and married might not be coming back tonight except to pack his things. If that happened, she knew she'd be helpless to stop it, but she wasn't going to watch.

"How is everyone else?" Edward asked, distracting Jacob from his worries. "Leah and the baby?"

"They're wonderful," Jacob said, abruptly shifting to a new round of thoughts and appreciating Edward for the subject change. Motherhood was a challenge for Jacob's friend, but she rose to it with joy and determination, and found much to be happy about. Grace flourished under her mother's love and care, and Leah was completely transformed in the best of ways. "Leah's going back to work full time now that Gracie's in preschool. My sisters and my pack brothers are okay, their families are healthy—Quil and Kara just had their first baby. Seth finished his residency at Seattle Children's Hospital a few months ago. We're good, Edward. Really. Things are actually kind of…" The end of that sentence caught him by surprise. "Normal."

_Normal, except that my feet want to go one way, but my head wants to flee in the opposite direction._

"Maybe you should leave, Jacob," Edward muttered, stepping in front of his old friend in an attempt to protect him. "We'll all understand. Go home to your wife."

"Yeah," Jacob mouthed, though his neck was craning around Edward's form as his body gravitated toward the bronze-haired girl.

"Jake, don't—" Edward started. It did no good. Jacob's legs were propelling him forward, dragging him in spite of his own mental protest to the center of the known universe, until without his permission he was standing two feet away from her, with only Bella's tiny, cold body between them, her fierce expression an unwanted reminder of the year he turned sixteen and the world as he knew it went to hell in a hand basket.

"No, Jacob," Bella whispered, absolutely certain now that her husband had been right all along.

"It's all right, Mom," Renesmee whispered, one arm wrapped around Nahuel's waist and the other tapping Bella's neck. _Let him look at me._

Irritated with her daughter for her apparent naivety and selfishness, Bella growled low in her throat and tried to block the way, but it didn't matter. Jacob the man pictured Emily's face and thought of the summer days when he took his children swimming, but his arm reached over to touch Renesmee's wrist, his base, supernatural animal instinct telling him he must be anything she needed.

But the moment he met her soft, brown eyes, a perfect replica of her mother's and grandfather's, he saw his tiny Nessie, the little one he helped raise, all grown up with a family of her own.

Jacob stepped back.

"It's wonderful to see you again, Ness," he told her, smiling. "But I really need to get home. My wife is waiting, and it's my turn to read bedtime stories to the kids."

"Of course, Jake," the young woman replied, grinning at him. "Give Emily my best."

They clasped hands in a gesture of farewell, and Jacob did not hear the message Renesmee had intended to send, did not receive her palm pressed to his face, as she so often did when she was little, did not need her to absolve him or release him. He nodded a polite goodbye to her mate, briefly embraced Bella, shook hands with Edward, and turned away, leaving Renesmee's words unthought, unheard, and unnecessary:

_Life is good, Jacob. I don't need anything. Go home and be happy._

It was already all he ever wanted to do.

End.

* * *

_Senhora Bella:_ Mrs. Bella, or Madame Bella

_amada Nessa: _beloved Nessa, Nahuel's pet name for Renesmee

**Thank you to everyone who has read and reviewed. Happy Holidays!**


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